The Washington Post falls back into its 2005 mode of blaming Iran for the capabilities of a local insurgency. This time it is not Iraq where Iran is allegedly providing to insurgents, but Bahrain.
Old and debunked claims are hauled up and propaganda from the U.S. proxy Sunni dictatorship is cited as “evidence”. It is a top-right front-page story in the Sunday edition and thereby “important”. It is also fake news.
The headline: U.S. increasingly sees Iran’s hand in the arming of Bahraini militants. The core:

The report, a copy of which was shown to The Washington Post, partly explains the growing unease among some Western intelligence officials over tiny Bahrain, a stalwart U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf and home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Six years after the start of a peaceful Shiite protest movement against the country’s Sunni-led government, U.S. and European analysts now see an increasingly grave threat emerging on the margins of the uprising: heavily armed militant cells supplied and funded, officials say, by Iran.

The authors insert caveats:

While Bahraini officials frequently accuse Tehran of inciting violence, the allegations often have been discounted as exaggerations by a monarchy that routinely cites terrorism as a justification for cracking down on Shiite activists.

But after noting that Bahraini authorities notoriously lie the authors regurgitate approvingly the claims of exactly those authorities:

…the country’s investigators said in a confidential technical assessment … a copy of which was shown to The Washington Post…

That is supported, the authors say, by:

…interviews with current and former intelligence officials…

Surely, “current and former intelligence officials” are paragons of truth and veracity and whatever they claim MUST be true.
At issue is the detection of one basement workshop in Bahrain where someone is using “$20,000 lathes and hydraulic presses” to produce shaped charges and also stored a pile of C4 explosives.
A $20,000 lathe is at the lower end of low-quality professional tooling. Hydraulic presses can be made from car jacks. How to make hollow charges and explosive formed penetrators (EFPs) is described in the CIA’s Explosives for Sabotage Manual which the U.S. translated and distributed for decades in Afghanistan and elsewhere. C4 explosives of various origins, including from Iran, are available on black weapon markets throughout west-Asia.

Source: CIA Handbook

Nothing of the above points to the conclusion that these are “cells supplied and funded .. by Iran”. The only connection to Iran the Bahrani police found and which is noted in the piece is:

One of the six caches “involved C-4 in its original Iranian military packaging,” the report said.

The piece does not note where the C4 in the other five caches came from. A detailed chemical analysis will be able to find the “signatures” of the chemical production facilities. If only one of six explosive caches comes from an Iranian manufacturer the problem Bahrain has on hand with the C4 is hardly of Iranian origin. So why are the manufacturing origins of the other five caches of explosives not mentioned at all? Did those caches come from the U.S. or from Saudi factories?
But the problems with the piece do not end there.
After noting how unreliable Bahrain official claims are, it discussed at length such Bahraini claims.
After describing the cheap equipment used to make shaped charges in Bahrain it goes on to explain how Iran, and only Iran, gives those to insurgencies. It quotes some guy from the Zionist propaganda shop Washington Institute who:

saw echoes in Bahrain of Iran’s practice of supplying tank-crushing EFPs to Iraqi Shiite militias, which used the devices in an effort to create no-go zones around Shiite strongholds.

Iran did not and does not supply EFPs to Iraqi insurgents. The Iraqis made those themselves. That was documented here and elsewhere even ten years ago:

The WaPo story, though on today’s Sunday paper’s frontpage, has a (web-)dateline of April 1. That is probably the only reliable claim it carries.
There is no evidence that Iran provides for a Shia insurgency in Shia majority-Sunni ruled Bahrain just as there is no evidence that it supplies Zaidi fighters in Yemen who fight Al-Qaeda and its Saudi sponsors.
But there is by now a steady stream of Saudi and U.S. propaganda that makes such claims. These claims sound awfully similar to the claims made before the war on Iraq of (non-existing) Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. To find such again on page one of the Sunday edition of a major newspaper is more than disturbing.

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C how true the old saying YESTERDAYS NEWS GETS WRAPPED IN TODAYS FISH. Why would they try to rehash old and discredited arguments . Why would they try Assad gassed his own people shit like Idlib incidence when the Gouta one failed. They r desperate and running out of time . War and more war is all they have ever knowm since 2001 that has been the only thing saving their deluded economies /politics and society. 65 percent of US industrial capacity is related to the military industrial complex and all their proxies.
Kurchiner the ex Pres of Argentina was having a conversation with Wolfowitz/ She stated how peace brings prosperity. He flately stated no ur a rong war is good for business.

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Apr 6, 2017 10:31 AM

BigB

Mike Flynn, remember him? Was Iran “put on notice” for “malign actions”; or was it put on notice because it refused to denominate foreign oil sales in “worthless pieces of paper” and dumped the dollar? We all know what happened the last time a country opted to denominate sales in Euros? Basically, is this the CIA, sorry, WaPo’s way of ripping up the JPOA, reimposing sanctions and keeping an estimated $100bn of Iranian assets the US reneged on repaying as part of the deal?https://sputniknews.com/business/201602061034326281-iran-oil-euro/

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Apr 5, 2017 11:21 AM

rtj1211

At what point can Iran consider Washington Post employees to be ‘terrorist insurgents’? They are after all attempting to incite war without evidence justifying it……drone strike on DC anyone? Do try not to kill innocent children, Americans are very attached to their little ones…….

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Apr 5, 2017 7:49 AM

Dead World Walking

Wars are a win-win-win for the invaders.
They win votes from the xenophobic and racists.
They win financial largesse from the MIC.
They win media time from the bad (fake?) news.
The innocent victims are just ‘collateral damage’
Civilisation? Where?

Another thing: how is it that newspapers can get away with saying “group x makes claims, but group x lies habitually. The claims group x makes are sobering and must be taken seriously” and all the pundits and “experts” somehow always fail to notice this and treat the bogus claims as credible. How can any person with two neurons to rub together still believe we live in a free and open society?

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Apr 4, 2017 11:41 PM

Sav

One drink and shedloads of flattery poured on a journalist/editor invited to give their ‘expertise’ in a think tank or some social event for a ’cause’ is enough to have them eating out of your hand.
As far as they’re concerned – ok…maybe the US gets up to stuff…but it’s all for the greater good. The sociopaths amongst them don’t give a shit either way. They just follow the money and career.

It’s almost a given that the Trump administration will start a war, probably with Iran. Steve Bannon, Trump’s Cheney, wouldn’t let such an opportunity go to waste. And the “OMG Trump is satan!” crowd will approve wholeheartedly.